State #2 - Virginia

Last year I planned a surprise trip to Las Vegas for Matt's 30th Birthday. I invited Scott and Wendy to come along and we turned it into a surprise for both Matt and Scott's 30th Birthdays. We spent a long weekend there and we really had a good time. While we were there, we decided to travel the 50 states together over our lifetimes. When we were trying to decide where to go this year, there were several factors that came into play. First, Matt and I had spent a week in Hilton Head already, so finances were tight! Second, Wendy is about 5 months pregnant (it's a girl!), so we didn't want to do anything too strenuous or stressful. Third, we thought we would do a couple only trip since Wendy will have a baby next year that she probably won't want to leave with someone yet and we want some of our trips to be couple only trips. So...we settled on Virginia. We went to Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia which is in between Roanoke and Bedford.

There were some historical sites as you can see in the slide show. We visited the National D-Day Memorial. It has only been open since 2000. It was a very nice tribute to the troops that lost their lives that day. We had a great guide who had actually talked to several of the troops that had survived that day so he shared his "inside information" with us. Scott & Wendy also planted a flag in the flag garden in honor of his grandfather.

We also visited the Natural Bridge, which is the only natural bridge in the world. It was, at one time, on the list of 7 wonders of the world. You could see where people had carved their names in the rock walls, with dates as far back as the 1800s. Even George Washington had carved his initials there. It was amazing. In this same area was the indian village replica and the waterfall. We actually were not too happy when we got to the waterfall and realized we had hiked about a mile for barely a stream of water!! Oh well, I'm sure we all needed the exercise.

We visited a haunted house that had me and Wendy screaming at the top of our lungs! Scott was our fearless leader as the rest of us huddled behind him as he led us through the house. It was pretty creepy, but fun! We also went to a cavern that is about 30 stories deep. There was a huge crack in one of the "ceilings" that the guide said was caused by an earthquake. There was also an area that they had been giving tours in until they found out the floor was only about 3 inches deep! Thank goodness no one had ever fallen through!! At one point the guide turned out the lights so that we could see how dark it actually was in there. It was so dark you couldn't even see your hand in front of your face. I can't even imagine how scary it would have been to be the first person down there!

Booker T. Washington's birthplace was our last stop. We visited the place where he was a slave until he was 9. They have built a replica of what the farm looked like while he was there. The tiny house was amazing - we were told that around 8 or 9people lived there. I didn't realize before this that he was one of the founders of Tuskegee University. I'm not a real history buff, but his life story was pretty incredible!

We also ate a lot of good food and we stayed on the lake which Matt and Scott enjoyed. They fished during our down times and late into the night. We really had a great time and I can't wait to see where we'll go next year!